The success of the second ‘Austin Powers’ caught us by surprise a little bit. We had decided not to do even a second one, unless the audience wanted it and we could do something better.
JAY ROACHOnce you’re a public figure, there’s a certain amount of privacy you do give up.
More Jay Roach Quotes
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One of the series of decisions that the great screenwriter John McNamara made was about who to depict. [Ronald] Reagan had a role in HUAC, he was a friendly witness, but never went over-the-top about it.
JAY ROACH -
[Lyndon Baines Johnson ] technique in negotiation would be that he’d lean into you and take away your personal space, it didn’t matter your party affiliation when he was trying to convince you of something.
JAY ROACH -
Sometimes you fall in love with some things and then you fall out of love with it.
JAY ROACH -
In his life, [Dalton] Trumbo uses wit and comedy to fight these very high-stakes battles.
JAY ROACH -
[ Dalton Trumbo] always said he fought so many fights, all seemingly different, but all about the concepts of fairness and justice.
JAY ROACH -
People have an actual bias against there being some kind of popularity for political films, and when they get acknowledged, it helps keep the conversation going.
JAY ROACH -
For Bryan [Cranston ] to go back in time and become this larger-than-life and somewhat theatrical guy, who performed his ideas and rhetoric in public in a melodic and flashy way, was a bit of a risk.
JAY ROACH -
Sometimes I would like the opportunity to do character-driven comedy and that’s really what I was trying to do in Meet The Parents. I think in a way this is a more old fashioned type of comedy.
JAY ROACH -
But I always reassure them that as far as my contractual rights can go, I will protect them and make sure that they have approval over every bit of it so that they know I won’t show something that’s embarrassing.
JAY ROACH -
[Dalton] Trumbo himself was a terrible Communist.
JAY ROACH -
I love Dr. Evil [from Austin Powers] as a walking, talking, narcissistic manifestation of everything screwed up about human existence – his desire to take over the world, and have the world reflect his own power lust.
JAY ROACH -
From our perspective now, there is a not a huge understanding about the totalitarian Communism that Soviet Russia practiced during the 1950s – it was an atrocious system.
JAY ROACH -
When I’m shooting, really the audience I’m thinking the hardest about is that first test screening audience who I want to like the film and that first opening weekend audience.
JAY ROACH -
I like to shoot a lot of choices. I like a lot of stuff – and so I push to go faster, to shrink the time between the takes so that the takes are what you’re spending all your time on.
JAY ROACH -
It’s hard to imagine in this day and age the accent in Dalton Trumbo speaking voice, the Mid Atlantic mixture of an English and American dialect, so flowery and oratorical that it almost sounds theatrical. It would be uncool today, no one would ever speak that way.
JAY ROACH